Two walking-sticks

These poems by Hellenistic poets both begin with a rare-ish word for walking-stick, leading me to think they may be in conscious dialogue. Leonidas is third century BC; Phanias, maybe second? All we really know is that he is early enough to make it into the Garland of Meleager, in the first century BC.

6.293 (on YouTube)

LEONIDAS <OF TARENTUM>

His walking-stick, and yes, those little shoes —

These spoils of victory adorn your shrine,

Cyprian queen, taken from Sōchares,

The Cynic; and his grubby oil-flask too,

And tattered wallet that had gone to holes

But used to bulge with wisdom. Nevermore:

For Rhodōn, young and handsome, set them high

Amid the garlands of your vestibule

To mark how he was victor in the chase,

Snaring the elder who had seemed so wise.

As Francis Cairns points out in Hellenistic Epigram: Context of Encounter, the ‘little shoes’ subtly establish that the lifelong Cynic fell hard for Rhodōn: after a symposium he processed in kōmos to stand outside the young man’s door and serenade him, making a scene and publicly acknowledging his helplessness against Aphrodite’s power. The rest of Sōchares’ gear is the stereotypical uniform of the Cynic philosopher who professes indifference to society’s comforts and pretences. Often in epigram these Cynic gurus have trouble sticking to their principles, if they even try.

Leonidas wrote a kind of companion epigram, 6.298, in which he presents an alternate outcome: that Sōchares persists in his austerity till he starves to death. As events unfold in 8.294, though, the philosopher's mask of virtue has fallen aside. Sōchares' antics in party-slippers are the talk of the town. Tauta ta blautia; 'those little shoes'. 

6.294 (on YouTube)

PHANIAS

The walking-stick that kept him on his feet;

The leather tawse and giant fennel-stalk

That lay beside it, and that used to smite

The brows of infants, and the pizzle too,

That flexed so readily and sang so sweet;

The slipper with a single rigid sole;

The skull-cap, from a head devoid of hair.

Gifts for lord Hermes. Callōn set them here,

The keepsakes of a teacher in a school.

His limbs are fettered now by grizzled toil.

A pizzle is a dried bull's penis. They had a long history as a flogging instrument, though now they mostly become dog chews. Naturally there is a Wikipedia page.

Three books, three lamps

The lamp is the lover's frequent night-time accomplice in epigram. It lights the way to the chamber of the beloved, reveals their beauty, and bears witness to the consummation of desire. Maria Kanellou studies the motif systematically and sensitively.

The following epigrams, two by Meleager and one by 'Pompey the Younger' (whom I would like to be Octavian's rival, the son of Pompey the Great), are from books five, six, and seven. Though the lamp is primarily an erotic motif, it can cross between epigram's sub-genres to become dedicatory and funerary. 6.162 is new for the blog, the others are in the book.

5.8

MELEAGER

You holy Night, you lamp: no celebrants

But you we chose, to witness to our vows.

His was to love me always, mine to leave

Him never; and the two of you were there.

But now he says those oaths are borne away

On water, void: and, lamp, you see him now

Enfolded by another — and by more.

6.162 (on YouTube)

MELEAGER

To you, friend Cypris, Meleager leaves

His favourite lamp, the playmate in his games,

Accomplice to your night-long revelries.

7.219

POMPEY THE YOUNGER

She bloomed so finely, was desired by all; 

She gathered by herself the lily-blooms

Of all the Graces. LAÏS looks no more

Upon the Sun driving its golden team

Across the sky. She sleeps the destined sleep.

The young men nightly vying at her door,

The lovers’ scratches, the confiding lamp:

All these she has renounced and put aside.